Posts Tagged ‘iphone’

Will KDDI’s IS01 Android smartphone be able to outperform the iPhone this summer?

SoftBank, DoCoMo and KDDI are all hoping that their new lineup of cell phone models are going to make a big splash on the market when they’re released this summer. On one count at least, that will be true for almost all models, as waterproof was the dominant feature in this season’s phones.

But being able to cut it poolside wasn’t the biggest issue. What had keitai-watchers buzzing was whether DoCoMo and KDDI would to outshine SoftBank in the smartphone arena. SoftBank currently sell the iPhone, which has quickly become the nation’s favorite smartphone. Given the exclusivity of Softbank’s agreement with Apple, Docomo and KDDI naturally had to come up with rival devices to knock the sheen of Apple’s best selling gadget. To that end, last week both carriers announced new phones that will run on the Android OS. Among them were more interface options. For example, KDDI’s IS01 smartphone offers both a qwerty keyboard and a touch display; same goes for Docomo’s Sharp LYNX SH-10B.

But SoftBank still seems to continue to be one step ahead, in terms of innovation. Many of the new cell phones in the SoftBank stable are Twitter-friendly, straight out of the box, thanks to either an app or widget. After the U.S., Japan has the highest number of Tweet traffic in the world, with the Japanese making up 15 percent of the globe’s Tweets, so it’s easy to see how this function might be popular.

SoftBank also showed itself to be ahead of the curve by introducing a pet monitoring device called Mimamori which can be controlled by the user’s cell phone. This very groovy looking digital camera is equipped with a motion sensor that allows it to track a pet’s movements while in the home and relay shots of that pet to the user’s mobile. The camera can also be remotely controlled in real time by users who want to check up on their pets while they are out of the house.

While Softbank pulled ahead with novelties such as these, DoCoMo really came up trumps in the style stakes by offering brand-designed phones for their Style Series, including models designed by popular brands Francfranc and Marimekko. Expect to see these stylish numbers dangling from the handbags of Shibuya and Ginza this summer.

As we already mentioned, the majority of phones were waterproofed this season. Will solar charging be the next big thing in the fall collections? If so, both KDDI and SoftBank are already out of the gate. SoftBank’s Solar Hybrid 936SH developed by Sharp offers two hours of standby display or one minute call time for a 10-minute charge. KDDI also offers a Sharp model with their Solar Phone SH007 and also claims that a 10-minute solar charge is enough for a one-minute phone call.

As temperatures soar and these new phones hit the streets, the battle to knock the iPhone off its top spot is set to intensify.

And new moms who had the presence of mind to get on Twitter and announce their delivery on the microblogging site are rewarded not only with a bunch of 140-character congratulations, but with an iPhone app, too. BabyBlog will send a free copy of its photo cataloging app to the first 100 parents each month to tweet 「出産なう！」(shussan nau), Japanese Twitter-speak for “I’m delivering a baby now.”

And hope the iPhone is still nearby when the tweets become a repeated string of “the baby is crying now.” Not surprisingly, some of the top-ranking paid apps in the “medical” section of Japan’s iPhone App store are baby soothers, including Stop Cry Baby Sound, Baby Smile and Baby Sleep.

Getting out of the house might be a welcome idea when the bundle of joy gets a little bigger. The women’s division of Japanese web portal Excite launched a mobile “Mama support” site this week with an “Out with Mama” directory. It lists “mom-oriented” details for about 20,000 entertainment, shopping and health-care venues around the Kanto and Kansai areas where babies are welcome, including vital data like whether there are places to nurse and if strollers can be wheeled in. The site, in Japanese only, is available on on the three main cell phone carriers, and unlimited access costs ¥210 a month.

Could any of these be the elusive population-boosting incentive the graying country’s been waiting for?

Finally, if the kid’s going to cry anyway, might as well make a sport of it. People have been getting a kick out of Asakusa’s relatively new take on the centuries-old tradition of nakizumou, a contest in which young sumo wrestlers compete to see who can make a baby cry the loudest. It’s all for the greater good – the tradition apparently comes from the old proverb “A crying baby grows up strong,” so it’s good luck if your kid cries.

Considering that the monthly rent for a strip of asphalt to park a car can cost as much as an entire apartment in other places, it’s not surprising that car-sharing services are making inroads as a more affordable, more eco-friendly alternative to owning a car. As the number of services grows, companies are competing to differentiate themselves by going online and mobile — one has an app that can find a shareable car and pop its locks.

Car-sharing memberships are increasingly being offered by condominiums, car rental companies (Orix) and parking lot companies (Park24). Orix is the largest with about 6,500 members. Drivers pay a monthly fee of around ¥3,000 or ¥4,000 and then usage fees of a few hundred yen for driving increments as short as 15 minutes.

There are over 20 car-sharing companies in Japan now — and about half of them started up just last year, according to Japanese site car-share.net. Companies and government programs have been experimenting with the idea in Japan since as early as 1999. Mazda car rental, which was recently taken over by Park24, started one of the first widespread sharing programs in 2006, followed by Orix the next year.

The companies tout lots of pluses: no need to worry about gas, repairs or cleaning. They also push the environmental benefits of not owning a car (hence the green fonts and leafy cartoons on so many car-share Web sites). Orix even includes electric cars in its lineup: the i-MiEv from Mitsubishi and Subaru’s Plug-in Stella. (Sidenote: another money-saving, eco-loving car trend is car pooling, which is also called car sharing in Japan. Confused yet?)

Great. Saving money, elbow grease and the planet all at once. So how to find a car when you need one? The cars are going mobile in a twenty-teens way, as car sharing companies put out iPhone apps to get people into the shared cars faster.

Orix and “Car Sharing Club” Careco (pronounced ka-re-ko) both launched free iPhone apps this month. Both let members find locations and rates for available shared cars near particular areas or train stations and make or change reservations. Orix’s version has GPS as well as augmented reality navigation to the “car station” where the car is waiting.

Careco’s app includes photos and rental rates, and it even has a futuristic feature it claims is an industry first: it locks and unlocks the car doors. (Take that, Remote!) Future updates that include searching by GPS and push notifications are planned.

It’s been said Japanese love of car ownership could be an obstacle to widespread adoption of car sharing here. After all, 愛車, read “ai sha,” is in Japanese dictionaries, meaning something like “beloved car.” The unassuming English words “my” and “car” were even fused into a culturally defining concept. It remains to be seen whether the “ai phone” can replace the national love of the “mai-kaa.”

In Japan, when the little pale pink cherry blossom petals start appearing in late March to early April, it’s a cause for celebration, organized celebration. So what could be so hard about having a party under the snowy branches with friends or coworkers? Plenty. A pre-season hanami “fail” survey this year by goo Research found 10 ways a hanami can go wrong. It can be hard to get the timing right. You can get rained on, end up at a place with no toilets, or pick a place with few trees. Even a best-case scenario can have you and your friends starting out sprawled in the sun and ending up a freezing mass, huddled and hungry on your cold, blue tarp in the unpredictable spring weather.

iSakura app gives weather and bloom information

The survey, translated by What Japan Thinks, found that the number one problem hanami party organizers have had was finding and keeping a good spot. With more Japanese people carrying smart phones, sophisticated applications are coming to the rescue, including new iPhone apps from AAA, Weathernews and iSakura.

The iSakura app, from BayardNetwork Co., appears to be one of the most popular. It has info on 1,000 cherry blossom-viewing sites across Japan and has been hovering in the top 10 free downloads in the Japanese iTunes store. It can search for flower-viewing venues by name, area, train line or highway exit or by using GPS to find the nearest spot. The database is also searchable via specific conditions, such as night viewing, free entry, availability of parking and public toilets, and whether beer, sake or snacks are sold on site. For each location, in addition to those details and the venue phone number, it tells how open the blossoms are on a 10-degree scale from budding to full and offers the capability to jot down digital notes.

The second most common problem blossom party organizers reported was running out of food and drinks. The Domino’s delivery iPhone app, also featured in the Apple store as a hot item, uses GPS to deliver right to wherever you are, even when you’ve lost track of where in the sea of tarps that is. It also has 20% off coupons within the app until April 25.

The hype surrounding augmented reality (AR) technology is often dwarfed by coverage of 3D television, but that may change once both are put into practice on a broad scale. AR could prove to change lives more profoundly, not only by locating subway stations or inviting Robert Downey Jr. into your cubicle, but also by providing information about anything or anyone at which you point your device.

Now this is a fantastic idea. The Japanese firm Mobile Art Lab has turned the iPhone into an interactive children’s book with what they’re calling the PhoneBook.

This is not the first iPhone-related program aimed at your toddler – you could spend hours looking through all the child-related applications available on iTunes – but this approach, with its book-like accessory framing the touchscreen, is an idea that is bound to catch on. Mobile Art Lab has stated that these kind of applications are not limited to children’s books, but could also be utilized in other types of media such as catalogs and brochures. Graphic novels and manga could easily integrate this technology as well, but the interactive potential makes this an ideal learning tool.

“In other words, this time we are setting our data free, free for people to share and broadcast to more places and in more ways than we could imagine.”

One of the fruits of such generosity is the new Tokyo Art iPhone application, which I am growing to love quite quickly. Not only can you search the TAB listings for a particular genre of art you’d like to see (photography, sculpture, etc.), you can also choose a specific area of town you’d like to explore.

The app goes a step further by using the iPhone’s maps and geolocation capability to find the closest Tokyo art and design events to wherever you’re standing. Just open the app and touch the “nearby” button after you choose a radius you want to work with (500 meters to 3,000 meters). A few seconds later, you’ll have gallery choices and directions. You can read TAB’s info on the gallery and exhibit, or go straight to a map.

Sort galleries by distance or popularity, or use the “free” filter to only see events with no entrance charge. There are hundreds of art events every month in Tokyo. TAB made them much easier to discover, and now the the Art Tokyo app practically walks you to their doorstep.

Just one more reason to get out there and see some art.

*KAB is currently on hiatus. They aren’t updating the calendar, but the site is still a great resource for art-related venue information such as maps, descriptions and directions. Just go to the Venues tab.